


Sing me no hymns

by printers_devil



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Badly Negotiated Poly, Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Feral Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Intercrural Sex, Multi, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Rough Sex, Sex Magic, Vaginal Sex, Violent Thoughts, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23727310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/printers_devil/pseuds/printers_devil
Summary: Byleth learns the easiest way to restore her time powers: with sex, and lots of it. When Dimitri discovers this and offers to help, he has absolutely no intention of taking no for an answer.Chapter Two:Then again, one's own feelings were rarely the best guide to the truth.Mercedes gets in over her head, Byleth gets mad, Dimitri gets off, and Sylvain has like five emotions, which is four and a half too many for him.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 18
Kudos: 126





	1. A small talent for war

**Author's Note:**

> After a detour into rarepair town, I'm back to Feral Dimitri. Someone requested "Having sex to restore magic power for Byleth. Taken from Fate Stay Night" and I ran with it. <3 highly contrived premises <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I'll handle it on my own," Byleth grumbled into the pillow._
> 
> _"You've been trying all afternoon, haven't you," said Dimitri. Silence followed his words, but not denial._

If he was going to take Edelgard's head, Dimitri needed Byleth.

He did not want to need her, or any of the people who called themselves his _friends_ or _retainers_ , or the army whose well being he now had to care about, but Byleth was the most important of them all. The Empire had tried to retake Garreg Mach; her command had driven them back. In the wake of the battle, however, she seemed weak. Pale. Tired. He'd seen her this way before, after she'd merged with the Goddess. She'd been prone to fainting, and, foolish boy that he'd been, he'd been more than happy to catch her.

So Dimitri kept an eye on her. He'd spent more than his share of time staking out Imperial generals' personal residences. Compared to their security measures, Byleth's routine was pathetically predictable, when they were not preparing for war.

She rose early and ate breakfast at the same time every day, trained for exactly the same amount of time with a rotating cast of former students and Knights of Seiros. She ate lunch, went fishing in the pond immediately afterward, and either wrote letters on the Church of Seiros's behalf, attended the war council with Gustave, or trained on her own. Then she ate dinner, went for a walk through the monastery, and went to bed. Four days of watching was enough to establish this, where he'd have spent a month or more conducting reconnaissance on someone he wanted to kill.

Three weeks, and there was a deviation in the pattern. The first one happened on one of her evening walks: she shook him off somewhere around the stables, and it took him some backtracking to find her in the greenhouse. When he peeked around the door, he heard the heaving of breaths first, before he saw anything, and thought: what a strange place to train. Then he looked, saw Byleth seated on the edge of a planter, her trousers shoved down around her ankles.

It was Mercedes who knelt between her splayed legs, her head buried in the wiry curls there, licking. As Dimitri watched, she turned away from Byleth's cunt and pressed a gentle, tender kiss to the crease of her thigh, smiling her beatific smile up at their former professor. Byleth's hand flew to Mercedes's short hair and dragged her back, making wordless, desperate noises of encouragement, her chest heaving, her head thrown back in ecstasy.

Dimitri backed away from the door immediately, then looked again, to make sure his eyes hadn't deceived him: but Byleth was still there, still fucking Mercedes. Mercedes had her own hand up her skirts, rubbing hard at herself. Something surged in Dimitri's breast: jealousy, raging, hot jealousy, toward Mercedes, toward _anyone_ who so much as looked at Byleth.

 _Pitiful,_ the dead said, _to care about someone living. Think only of us, you weak, stupid child. You will not put us to rest lurking around this monastery. Leave—_ but they said this to him every hour of every day. He had to live with them, and if he could not ignore their mocking and do what needed to be done to appease them, he would have given in to despair years ago.

*

Another deviation, days later, when they'd come back from a skirmish with bandits: where Byleth should have been studying or training, one day, she made a turn across the bridge, toward the ruined Cathedral. Because Seteth led the evening prayers elsewhere, in a smaller but still-intact chapel, the cathedral was abandoned this time of day. Was she meeting Mercedes again? Here, in the sanctum of the Goddess herself? Dimitri waited until Byleth slipped into the cathedral, and followed at a distance.

The cathedral itself smelled like dust and candle wax. Workers, stonemasons, had clearly been working on it earlier in the day. There was no sign of Byleth, however, until Dimitri heard a sound coming from the chamber of the Four Saints' statues.

"Sylvain," Byleth was saying. " _Please_."

"Yeah, professor, I hear you," Sylvain said. There was laughter in his voice, and it wasn't nice laughter. "I'm still going to take my time. You know it's always worth the wait. Now, relax a little"—a wet, slick sound, a low and near-sobbing moan from Byleth—"just a little more, that's it. That's the head. You take it so good, did you know that?"

Dimitri's breath caught in his throat. He edged closer to the corner of the cathedral so that he could look in on them, and by the time he got there, Byleth's moans rang out through the hallowed space. He peered around the corner. Byleth clung to the base of the bronze statue of Saint Cichol, back arched, eyes wide with ecstasy. Sylvain peppered the side of her neck with kisses, muttering nonsense words about how tight she was, how she was squeezing him. His cock was buried in her ass, and he ground his hand against her clit.

Dimitri saw red again. He did not have a sword or a lance, but the tall candelabras lying in a twisted pile on the ground were gilded steel; it would be child's play to straighten one and snap the candleholders off. A steel rod thrust with enough force through someone's chest would kill them as surely as a weapon would. It would take a long time for Sylvain to die of it, and would Byleth simply watch it happen, impassive, or would she find a weapon and attack him? His hand had drifted to his cock as he thought of it, and he stroked himself idly through his pants, watching as one of Sylvain's thrusts sent Byleth's knees buckling.

"Come for me," Sylvain was saying, "do it, fuck, you feel so good, professor—"

And Byleth came apart, gasping and crying out to the ceiling.

Dimitri left the two of them draped over each other, panting. He went back to his room and stroked himself to images of what he'd just seen, and the dead jeered him: pathetic, weak, foolish.

*

The very next afternoon, he went to find Byleth in her chambers. The door wasn't locked, and Dimitri walked in without knocking. He'd been here before—once as a student, and a dozen times over when he'd haunted the monastery, luring Imperial troops in for the slaughter. He had sat on her bed, paced the floors, read her illegible old notes to herself from the board above her desk. To see it inhabited, a pair of trousers on the floor, books from the library piled up haphazardly on the sideboard... he did not belong here, but he shut the door behind himself anyway.

Byleth herself lay in bed reading, propped up on pillows, one leg outstretched, a sword leaning against the bed within easy reach. Outwardly, she was calm, but before Dimitri had even crossed the threshold she had that sword a handsbreadth out of its sheath. When she saw it was him, however, she relaxed, put it away.

"Dimitri," she said.

"Professor."

"You've been following me around the monastery."

There was no point in denying it: "I have."

Her wide green eyes were blank as always, and she cocked her head. "Why?"

"You're valuable," said Dimitri. "I didn't want you becoming weak. I found you... playing with your students."

This elicited no response from her at all. There had been entire days, entire weeks as a student where he hadn't thought of revenge at all, where his greatest and most pressing ambition had been to see this woman smile at him with pride. She sat up, cross-legged, and picked up her book to set it in her lap. Its cover was embossed with an enormous golden fish.

"I merged with the Goddess," she said. "I have"—she took a breath, closed her eyes—"certain powers because of this. I didn't understand how to use them before I slept, but I do now."

"And?"

"They will restore themselves eventually, but sex makes them come back faster. Mercedes and Sylvain help."

Dimitri could still see her in his mind's eye, her legs open for Mercedes, crying out to the steamy glass ceiling of the greenhouse. Bent over, clinging to the base of Saint Cichol's statue, speared on Sylvain's cock. Dimitri had replayed those images over and over in his head this morning in bed, toying with himself under the blankets. He'd had nowhere to be—no one asked him to come to war council meetings unless they had to trot him out in front of a skeptical noble to prove that they had the real Blaiddyd king. No one but Felix truly wanted to train with him. He could afford to stroke himself slowly, running through the way Byleth's knees had buckled under Sylvain's onslaught, how she'd tugged urgently at Mercedes's hair.

"You should have come to me," Dimitri said.

"You're not interested in anything but your revenge." Byleth took up her book again, licked her finger, turned a page. Dimitri's eyes stuck to the sight of her little pink tongue. "It didn't cross my mind."

"But _Mercedes_ did? Sylvain did?"

"That's none of your concern."

Aware that Byleth was entirely right, that she'd have had no way of knowing Dimitri was interested in her, that he had done nothing but push her away since she'd returned—he was mad, not stupid—he advanced on the bed. He'd _show_ her how interested he was. He plucked the book out of her hands and flung it away; this did not seem to move her. If anything, she looked bored with him. He took her face in his gloved hand and squeezed, fingers sinking into the hollows of her cheeks, making the skin white beneath them. "From now on, I'll take care of your needs."

She gazed up at him, impassive. She was so beautiful, and Dimitri was a monster who did not deserve to so much as breathe the same air as her—he did not deserve to be alive, either, yet here he was.

"Get out," Byleth said. "If I wanted you, I'd tell you."

She'd never barked an order at their class even once: she simply told them all what to do, calmly, with the assurance of someone whose demands had always been heeded. One simply wished to do what she said when she said it, and it seemed that the habit of obedience had survived even five years of blood and death, it seemed. He caught himself turning to leave and turned right back around. Without thinking about it, he fisted one hand in the front of her plain black shirt and dragged her up out of bed. She was heavier with muscle than he'd expected, but he held her dangling over the space between her bed and his body so that her face was level with his. Her arms went around his neck to support herself, and she made an obstinate, defiant face, but she didn't fight.

"You want me," he said.

Dimitri set his mouth to the hard line of her lips, coaxing them apart. She yielded to him reluctantly, and the stiff breath she drew in through her nose when she let him licked into her mouth was music to his ears.

He was only half-aware of her kicking herself off of the bed, her arms still clamped around his neck, and she slid down the length of his body until her feet touched the ground. He let her, bending over to follow her. She was so small, her breasts were so soft. He ran his hands up and down her strong back, over her ass, to squeeze her thighs—all the power of a Goddess, his to touch—but she was not _his_. Her body against his felt like heaven, like a reward he had not earned and never would.

He'd had needs in the past five years, and he'd relieved them. In the quiet after his orgasm, the world became quiet. He'd learned to make it good for whomever he was with: he'd never needed to take by force until now, with this one woman who did not know what was best for her.

 _And you?_ the dead said, crowding into the room. _You know what's best for her? You know what's best for anyone?_

Byleth sat down on her bed, dragging him down with her as she fell backward. He went down gladly. He was hard, and he ground his erection against her as she cried out into his mouth. He knew this cry, he'd heard it with Mercedes, with Sylvain, he'd seen her come, he knew the lewd faces and sounds she made, he wanted nothing more than to feel her around him as she fell to pieces. It would be so easy—

_For anyone? For yourself? If you knew anything, Edelgard would be dead now._

They were so loud. They were so close. Dimitri couldn't bear it anymore, and broke the kiss, dragged himself off of her. Byleth lay on her back, legs still parted to the exact width of his body over hers.

"You want me," he repeated. Byleth nodded, eyes wide. But he made himself leave, so he could be alone until the whispers quieted.

*

Everyone came back from Aillel filthy, dusty, exhausted.

Rodrigue came with them. Dimitri had loved the man once, but he had no time for Rodrigue's gentle pity, Rodrigue's boundless concern, Rodrigue's unending attempts at _But what would Lambert think of the man you've become?_ and avoided him as much as he could. He knew very well what his father thought of him. He heard it every night before he went to sleep.

 _If you just left, you would not have to duck and hide from an old man like a frightened child_ , the dead said, speaking in Lambert's voice. _Go! Free yourself._

He did not. He could not. The dead always advised the most expedient course of action, but rarely the _best_ one. If he wanted to watch Edelgard von Hresvelg weep with remorse, beg for forgiveness, and bleed to death at his feet, he needed to be patient.

On the march back to Garreg Mach, Byleth looked haggard, worn down. Now that Dimitri knew what to look for, he caught Mercedes and Sylvain giving her questioning looks, which she always shook her head _no_ at. The two of them gave one another questioning looks, too, and a diligent observer might have Sylvain slipping into Mercedes's tent at night when the army camped. Dimitri did not care about this. He did care that they were leaving their army's most valuable asset unattended.

But Dimitri could wait. He had waited five years. They returned to the monastery, and Byleth immediately pleaded indisposal, half-healed battle wounds, the call of the Goddess, and withdrew to her room.

Dimitri did not have to plead anything to be left alone. He could stalk off to the Cathedral, the training grounds, the greenhouse, and people simply did not want to follow him. He watched her door from afar, noted the traffic. It took a day and a half for the parade of well-wishers coming in and out of Byleth's quarters to dry up: Seteth and Flayn, Manuela, Hanneman, Felix, Annette, Ashe. Neither Sylvain nor Mercedes had visited—perhaps they were still busy with each other, or perhaps Byleth had continued to turn them away at the gates.

He made his move at sundown on the second day. He waited until no one was on the green and gave a polite knock, a petitioner's knock, at her door. Her weary voice rang out: "Come in."

Dimitri entered. She lay on her stomach in bed, blankets pulled only up to her waist, a book next to her pillow. This one had a pattern of green fish on the binding. She turned slowly to face the door, and the only acknowledgment she gave him was a raise of the eyebrows. She didn't even lift her head.

"Professor," he said, shutting the door behind him. He could think of her as Byleth, but he could not bring himself to call her by name.

She grunted, pushed herself up on her elbows, took up her book, and began reading. The air in the room smelled stale, and her armor lay strewn in a pile on the floor, her chestplate still bloodstained from the battle. There were dirty dishes on every available surface, and the boy he'd been would have gathered them up for her, made the room neat. This thought alone made him want to leave: every time he saw her he was reminded of a person he could no longer be, and had never really been to begin with.

Dimitri shrugged off his cloak and left it hanging over the back of her desk chair. He began unstrapping himself from his armor as well. She pressed her lips into a thin line. For someone who rarely did more than frown disapprovingly, she may as well have been throwing a screaming tantrum.

"I don't want it," Byleth said, reaching out and hiking the blankets up her body. "Go."

She seemed to think Dimitri was asking. He was not. He pulled off his tight undershirt, his trousers. "If you don't recover within the month, you're worthless to me," he said. His underwear went, too, so that he was naked in the cool air of her room. The blanket did nothing to hide the curve of her ass, and he was already half-hard thinking about what was to come. "Do you understand?"

"I'll recover in a week," she said. She rested her head against the open pages of her book for a moment, fatigue written all over what he could see of her face. "I need...."

He advanced on the bed, and when his knee depressed the side of it she was not lying on, her whole body flinched. She snapped her book shut, turned toward him, eyebrows drawn together with irritation.

"You need me to fuck you," he finished for her.

Dimitri yanked the blanket off of her—she wasn't wearing anything on the lower half of her body. Her bare legs were exposed to the air, her scars standing out in high relief in the soft light of the room. He'd seen those thighs in his dreams, on the back of his eyelids when he came into his hand. He settled atop her, pressing her into the thin mattress with all of his weight.

Beneath him, she struggled, but this only succeeded in rubbing against his aching cock. With one hand, he pinned her wrists to the bed, and with the other, he slid his fingers under her body, between her thighs, and found her already wet there. Her hips ground against his hand briefly before stilling, and he felt a rush of triumph. "See?" he said. "You need this."

"I'll handle it on my own," Byleth grumbled into the pillow.

"You've been trying all afternoon, haven't you," said Dimitri. Silence followed his words, but not denial.

Enough talking. She felt so good under him, so compact and strong: all the power of the creator Goddess in this one body, and she'd been reduced to rubbing herself off for hours to manage it. He'd desired this so long, and now he was going to take it, savor it. He moved the hand underneath her body up, to cup one of her heavy breasts, finding her nipple and closing his fingers around it. The needy whine she let out was music.

Slowly, Dimitri lowered his lips to the side of her neck, kissed her there. Byleth tilted her head eagerly for the touch of his lips, his teeth, grinding her ass against his cock. He was not going to be discreet, he was going to mark her, so that everyone—Sylvain, Mercedes, the gatekeeper, it didn't matter—would know what she did in the dark. He pulled back enough to look at the mark he'd made, and it was over an old scar, as though someone had tried to slit her throat. He sank his teeth in, and her whole body jerked, then stilled.

She liked that. She needed him to make it hurt. He bit her again, soothed the marks with his tongue, and this time she made a noise into the pillow. Underneath her body, he groped her breasts carelessly; they were a magnificent afterthought, he did not have the patience to take her clothes off. He slid his hand over her stomach, back down between her legs, to give her the barest brush over her clit, which was already stiff. She tried to twist her hips away from the sensation, but that only pressed her tighter against his body. Her legs, spread wide, belied her efforts.

"There's no sense in resisting it," Dimitri said, his fingers moving in slow circles over her clit. "I need you at full strength, and I'm going to take care of this for you." If he made it that long. He wanted to be inside of her so badly it hurt, but even more than that, he wanted her limp and desperate for it before he took her. "Did you fight Sylvain before you let him fuck your ass? Did you fight Mercedes before you let yourself sit on her face? Give in, professor."

Byleth came with a series of tiny cries, each one more strangled than the last. He felt a rush of liquid soaking his hand and the blankets below, and he almost spent right there on her lower back. His balls were tight and heavy with need—but he had to be patient, he was here to complete a task.

When her whole body had gone loose and languid, and the only sound in the room was her labored breathing, he sat back on his knees. He was here to complete a task, but that did not mean he couldn't indulge himself, and so he did: palming at Byleth's ass, squeezing it, parting her cheeks to see the hole she'd let Sylvain use. He pressed only his thumb to it, stroking it gently, and she made a noise of assent, a greedy noise, even. But, no, he had no intention of putting his cock there, not yet.

So Dimitri spread her lower lips wide and rubbed only the head of his cock against them, and did not put it in yet. At the head of the bed, Byleth's hands were fisted in the pillowcase. She thrummed with anticipation, barely held her hips still. Greedy. He slid just the head in, testing her, stretching her, and the heat was incredible—the tightness, even better. He couldn't know whether she'd ever let Sylvain put it in her cunt, and Mercedes had small hands, slender fingers. But here Byleth was, legs askew, flat on her belly, allowing it, canting her hips back against him.

He put a stop to that immediately. As he pressed the rest of the way in, he settled his weight back on her and stayed there for a moment, buried inside of her. She squeezed his cock like she'd been made for him: and she _had_ been _,_ the Goddess had brought her to Garreg Mach all those years ago to be the key to his victory and the key to his revenge. At the thought of that day, of the Emperor's head on a pike over the walls of Enbarr, he shoved forward into Byleth, bottomed out in her.

Byleth gasped, tried to cut the noise short, her hips moving frantically under his. He let her feel every last inch of him as he moved in and out of her, steady and deep. She would not come out of this unaffected, unbroken. He would make sure of that.

As he moved in her, his hands roamed over the dip of her waist, the sides of her breasts. Her powerful back was a wonder of nature, a miracle of training. He dug his nails into her skin, raking them down her shoulders and the backs of her ribs, feeling how they caught on the raised and indented scars there.

He found himself making a hoarse sound, an exultant sound, as his rhythm stuttered, then sped up. He leaned over her so that once again his whole weight was on her, and now he could not bear to be outside of her body, and fucked her with short, deep thrusts. His forearm went around her throat, and at the joyous noise she made when he squeezed, he almost came. Somehow, he found the strength to hold back from spending inside of her, not until he felt her come around him.

In short order, she did so, her cry strangled by his arm around her neck. Her hand was jammed between her legs, and she rubbed herself through it, pleading and moaning into the pillow for him to go harder, faster. It was the hardest thing in the world to pull out of her, but he managed it. With two rough strokes of his hand, he finished himself on her ass, her lower back.

He rolled off of her, onto his side, and felt more at peace than he had in years. If he'd known all he needed to do to get the dead to shut up for a moment was fuck his professor, he would have done it as soon as she'd come back to him, right there on the spot, surrounded by the freshly dead.

Byleth still lay on her stomach, still breathless. Gradually, she hauled herself up to sitting, skirting around the wet spot they'd left on the sheets. He gazed up at her, and she stared placidly back down at him, smoothing a hand through her hair. If he had not just been inside of her, felt her come twice under him, he wouldn't have thought anything had happened to her. _I want to destroy her_ , he thought. He wanted to see her quivering, her eyes welling with tears of pleasure, her composure ruined.

There was plenty of time for that.

"This changes nothing, Dimitri," Byleth said into the deep quiet between them. "I'm not going to stop with Sylvain and Mercedes."

Dimitri searched for the jealousy he'd felt when he'd found her with Mercedes, the rage he'd felt spying on her and Sylvain. He could not summon either emotion up. All he could think of was Mercedes's sweet smile as she looked up at Byleth, and Sylvain's chatter in her ear—Mercedes's beautiful breasts, Sylvain's broad shoulders and lean hips—

"Let me watch, then," he replied.

Byleth huffed a short breath out, as though she had not thought of this. She then spent what seemed like five full minutes silently considering it before saying, "If they'll allow it."

"They will."

"You're so sure."

"I am," he said. "They won't say no." They wouldn't dare.

If she had a further opinion on the matter, she clearly was not going to share it with the likes of him. That was fine. He thought briefly of gathering his clothes and leaving, and decided against it; her bed was warm with their shared heat, and she had not told him to get out. He drifted off to sleep to the sound of her humming a song to him, and her hand running through his hair, and thought no more.


	2. A third of the stars in heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Then again, one's own feelings were rarely the best guide to the truth._
> 
> Mercedes gets in over her head, Byleth gets mad, Dimitri gets off, and Sylvain has like five emotions, which is four and a half too many for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Best laid plans, and all that. This has gotten even more wildly self indulgent in the past month and a half. You're welcome. 
> 
> But, ah, the perils of working on a WIP without any plan at all.... Let's pretend that nothing of this shows up in the first chapter because Dimitri is so hyperfocused on smashing Byleth's cheeks that he does not even register Mercedes's, like, entire existence.

Praying to the Goddess in her heaven was easy: all Mercedes had to do was shut her eyes, clasp her hands together, and think. Having sex with an incarnation of the Goddess—or someone who had been directly blessed by Her, Mercedes was not sure, it had been a very confusing last two months at school—was a little more theologically challenging, but Mercedes was up to the task. 

In her narrow bed, Mercedes had Byleth nestled up against her side. They'd come back from a skirmish against Imperial troops, and Byleth had pulled her aside into an alcove outside of the cathedral to kiss her. She'd looked drawn and pale, as she always did when she asked for Mercedes's attentions, or Sylvain's, or for both of them at the same time. 

Byleth was completely naked, stripped of her armor. Byleth's body was a masterpiece, built for endurance, and Mercedes never tired of looking at it. Mercedes had gotten as far as removing the outermost layer of her gremory's robes before the professor had pulled her on top of her in a puff of skirts. Now, Byleth looked up at her with pleading eyes, trying to cant her hips so that Mercedes had to thrust her fingers deeper. 

Mercedes shook her head. "Patience, professor," she said, brushing damp hair away from Byleth's forehead. She withdrew her fingers and instead rubbed her whole palm against Byleth's cunt. Another night, Mercedes would have slapped her there, just the way Byleth liked, but she was feeling merciful; and besides, they didn't have an audience. It was so rare to have Byleth all to herself. "You know I'll make you feel good, don't you? You just need to wait a little longer."

Byleth threw her forearm over her face, but Mercedes would not have that, no. She plucked it away and set it firmly down at her side so Byleth had no choice but to look at her. Then, slowly and deliberately, Mercedes slid down Byleth's body, holding that eye contact the entire time. 

"Watch me," said Mercedes. "Don't look away." 

To have this power over the strongest, most frightening person Mercedes knew was a strange magic. Byleth did not take her eyes off of Mercedes even once, not the first time she came, and not the fourth. While Byleth lay in her narrow bed, panting, wide-eyed, Mercedes stood to remove her underdress and her layers of petticoats, pausing to feel herself between her legs. She was so wet, her whole body felt alive, and she'd hardly noticed until now. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and she gestured at the floor between her legs. Byleth snapped to attention immediately. 

When it was over, they lay side by side in Mercedes's bed. Mercedes always wanted to hold her after sex, to show her affection, but after the first few times Byleth stiffened and squirmed away, Mercedes had stopped trying. Tentatively, she reached out to hold Byleth's hand, and Byleth allowed it. 

And now the moment of doubt came. The professor had chosen her simply because she was devout and convenient. What they did felt like it was holy, a consecration— _Both sides of time are revealed to me and me alone_ , Byleth had said, when she'd explained her powers to Mercedes. It had not sounded like the kind of thing she would say, and maybe the Goddess _had_ given her those words. If it was just a line, she might not have looked so nervous and sad when she'd asked Mercedes to sleep with her. Then again, one's own feelings were rarely the best guide to the truth. 

"Something is wrong," Byleth said, turning on her side to look down at Mercedes. 

"Hmm? It's nothing," Mercedes replied. She couldn't burden the professor with her problems. She was being ridiculous. 

Byleth nodded, but kept looking down at her. Goodness, but her stare was unnerving. Mercedes lasted about as long as she'd lasted as a student. "Why me?" she asked, at last, and lest she seem selfish, she added, "and why Sylvain?" 

The professor looked as startled as she ever did. "It felt right," she said. "Even when you were students, you worked very well together as a unit." 

"This isn't a battlefield," Mercedes replied. 

Byleth shrugged, one-shouldered, and pressed a kiss to Mercedes's forehead. "I have fun with you," she said. "I have fun with Sylvain. I hadn't had much fun in my life before I became your professor, and I'm not having much fun now."

She sounded matter-of-fact, but her wide green eyes looked very old suddenly, Mercedes thought. Ah, well, maybe it was a trick of the evening light. Then Byleth smiled down at her, or did her best attempt at a smile. It eased Mercedes's heart to see. She had come so far in the past six years, and Mercedes was glad to have been part of that, at least. 

"Stay with me tonight," Mercedes said, on an impulse. Even if she could not hold Byleth in her arms, she could at least wake up next to her—to a little piece of the Goddess. It would be a blessing beyond measure, and she'd have Byleth all to herself in the morning as well. 

"We're leaving again tomorrow for Aillel." 

"I think it would be nice. We can wake up early."

Byleth considered it for an amount of time that made Mercedes genuinely nervous. She had overstepped her bounds, she'd pushed for too much, too soon, this was all just a bit of fun for the professor—"All right," Byleth said, finally. "Do you snore? I do. I'm sorry." 

*

Byleth looked very tired after the battle at Aillel, but she turned both Mercedes and Sylvain down flatly and without a word of explanation.

Mercedes did her best not to feel put-out about it. She had Sylvain, after all. Their army and Lord Rodrigue's army had made their joint camp well outside the Valley of Torment, but it was still hot here. Sylvain looked miserable, but he came to the medic's tent and made a spectacle of himself anyway, helping lift stretchers and haul water. He made jokes, and he didn't complain when they asked him to carry piles of bloodied linens to the wagon with the army's washing. The physicians and healers loved when he came around. They all tittered about his Crest and his good looks, how dashing he looked on horseback, how charming he was, how lucky Mercedes was to have him wrapped around her little finger, and didn't _she_ have a Crest, too?

She ignored all of this, and made a show of being flustered when Sylvain kissed in full view of half the army. This only made her colleagues more interested, which was what she wanted. It was just a cover for the fact that they were both sleeping with the professor, after all; if anything, Mercedes was grateful that it had brought the two of them together for a time. Sylvain was good to her, and if there was a woman in his life apart from Byleth, Mercedes did not know and did not care to know. Sylvain could only be what he was. She wasn't foolish enough to think she was special.

Still, he followed her when she crossed the camp to find Dimitri and treat his wounds. "I can take care of myself," she protested, as they ducked and wove around groups of people at cooking fires. "He's not going to attack me." 

"I know, I know, you'll turn his brains into plum jelly before he can pick up his lance. But let me worry, all right?" Sylvain replied. "You got hurt today." 

"No one is watching," Mercedes said. "You don't need to be protective, Sylvain." No one was watching when he came to her tent at night, either, but she allowed herself that little hypocrisy. 

"How's the shoulder?" 

"Hmm? It's fine." She'd taken an arrow in the fight, but it had gone cleanly through her flesh, and another healer had gotten it out and healed her within five minutes. She was a priority, after all. Sylvain put his arm around her upper back, careful of where the wound had been, until they came to Dimitri. 

His Majesty Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, King of Faerghus and defender of the Faith, sat atop a rock on at the edge of a cliff, looking down into the burning ravine below. A plate of uneaten food sat on the rock next to him, and hit tent was pitched sloppily nearby. He was still covered in blood, and Mercedes knew at least some of it had to be his own. 

"Dimitri," Mercedes said. "I'm here to examine you." 

"No," Dimitri said. He didn't turn around to look at her. "Go away." 

Sylvain hovered at her back. Despite her complaints, she did take some measure of comfort from his presence. "Do you have any broken bones?" she asked Dimitri.

"No."

"Any cuts that are still bleeding? Burns?" 

"I told you to leave me." 

"Want me to knock him over the head and drag him back to the tent?" Sylvain asked. His hand was on her lower back, and she leaned into the pressure to let him know she appreciated it. 

"That wouldn't be very helpful"—and Dimitri would probably kill him—"but you're very kind to offer." 

Dimitri had no response, and did not answer Mercedes's next few questions. He never did. It was so tempting to give up and leave him to his fate, but someone had to pay attention, persist, and care. He always submitted himself for treatment eventually, after all. 

Sylvain escorted her back to the camp proper, then brought her dinner in her tent when she found she did not have the energy to wait in line. He unbuttoned the back of her uniform for her and helped her out of it, so that she stood before him in only her shift. He even gave her a footrub while she ate, massaging her sore arches and ankles with clever fingers, running his hands over her bare calves. If Mercedes didn't know better, she'd suspect he was romancing her. That would be silly of her. It was _Sylvain,_ after all. 

"The professor doesn't usually turn us down," Mercedes said, once she was finished with her meal. The food was awful, but the Fraldarius army had opened up their stores, and it was better than what they'd been eating at Garreg Mach. "I know the battle was awful, but she looked...."

"Worse than normal," Sylvain finished. 

He'd gotten out of his armor, and he lay on his back on her little cot. He opened up his arms, and Mercedes fell into them, setting her chin on his chest. Really, she thought, looking up into his eyes, he was just astonishingly handsome. He ran his hand through her bangs, brushing them back and letting them fall on her forehead. 

That hand went to her shoulder, now, passing gently over the new scar tissue where the arrow had gone through her. He made no comment on it, but tugged her upward so he could kiss her, slow and lazy. She gave herself over to the toe-curling pleasure of it. She had been thinking of others all day; this was something that was for her and her alone. 

Sylvain pulled her shift up, exposing her legs to the dry, hot air, his hand skimming up the backs of her thighs. 

"Ah, ah," Mercedes said softly, threading her fingers through his hair, his lovely red hair, squeezing, forcing him to look up at her. 

Immediately, his hands stopped their advance. His lips parted into a little _o_ at the pain. She had discovered early on that he liked it when she was forceful with him, that he craved a bit of sharp with his sweet. It had not come naturally to her at first, but she found that she very much enjoyed having someone do precisely what she told them to, for as long as she told them to do it. Sylvain and Byleth both had the obedient streak in them. It felt unfair, sometimes, to hold so much sway over the two of them in bed, but so few things in Mercedes's life had ever arranged themselves for her convenience. She could enjoy this. 

"I think the problem is Dimitri," Sylvain said, as Mercedes sat atop him, moving back and forth over his hard cock, teasing him through the layers of clothing they still wore. "Uh—he—he's been following the professor around lately. He thinks he's being subtle." 

"That's interesting," Mercedes replied. She'd think about that later. She slid her hands underneath his shirt, running them up his hard body, enjoying the way his muscles tensed under her touch.

They were wearing too many clothes. Sylvain's nimble fingers unlaced the front of her shift and freed her breasts, sucking greedily, gracelessly, at her nipples. Other people had liked her breasts quite a lot, and had happily fondled and pawed at them for their own gratification, but Sylvain _loved_ them. Once he'd calmed down and pulled away, he winked upat her, and he took his time warming her up. Every time they had sex, he treated her like she was a dessert, a pastry he wanted to savor, working his way around the outside of her breasts, kissing their undersides, running his tongue over everything _but_ her nipples. Mercedes's cunt pulsed between her legs, and she moaned for him, her hands running through his hair, over his upper back. She'd spent days pouring herself out; she needed to him to fill her up. 

Then Sylvain broke away, his brow furrowed in concentration. He said, "And the professor told me—"

She put a finger over Sylvain's lips to shut him up. She was so tired. She didn't care about Byleth or Dimitri right now, she wanted Sylvain inside of her, she wanted to forget all the death she'd seen today. She had to ration out her sorrows, or she would not be able to do the work. "Be on top of me now, please," she said, 

"Gotcha," Sylvain said, then paused and looked deep into her eyes. "Hey... I've got you, you know that?" 

She made a noise of assent, and she clung to him as he put his head between her legs, as he rode her, as he whispered endearments into her ear, as he spent deep inside her. Neither of them wanted a child, and there were dozens of ways of preventing it. Mercedes knew most of them. Nothing would take root in her womb unless she wanted it to. 

At last, when they were both tired out and crammed together on her cot, Mercedes remembered what they'd been talking about before he'd distracted her so comprehensively. "So Dimitri has an interest in the professor?" she said. Dimitri had followed the professor around like a puppy, but now he was a wolf. 

"He watched me and Byleth go at it one night," Sylvain said. "Don't ask where we were." The cathedral, then. "I hope we put on a good show, at least. You think she's going to sleep with him?" 

He put his arms behind his head and looked for all the world as though he did not care either way. "Who can say what's in the professor's mind?" Mercedes replied, trying to sound just as calm. Sylvain shrugged, too. It was very easy to know what was in his mind, at least. Sylvain was the last person she should be putting her trust in—it was not as though she did not have other friends—but he was the only other person who could understand what it was to have the Goddess herself use you. It wasn't onerous, but it _was_ lonely. 

In her selfish heart of hearts, with Sylvain stroking her back and the sounds of the camp settling down to sleep all around them, she could admit that she didn't like the thought of this. Avarice was wicked in the sight of the Goddess. She did not mind sharing Byleth with Sylvain, or sharing Sylvain with Byleth, or being shared by the two of them, or however their arrangement really worked. Adding Dimitri to the situation just seemed... tiring. They were all so tired, and there was so much more war to go. But if it was what Byleth wanted, Mercedes had to go along with it. 

"You should get back to your own tent," Mercedes said. "We have a long march tomorrow." 

Sylvain gave her an exaggerated wince. "Ouch. Give me a kiss before I go, beautiful?" 

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. Before he could protest, as he always did, that he truly _did_ mean his empty flirtations, she pressed a kiss to his lips and ushered him out into the warm night. 

* 

The Imperial army had spared Garreg Mach's greenhouse, but it had been overgrown to the point of the unusuability when life returned to the monastery. In the very back corner, where no one bothered weeding, were what was left of Dedue's flowers. Mercedes had found them, and she had not allowed anyone to touch them, and she returned every day to fuss over them, as Dedue might have were he still alive. Every night, she said a prayer that he rested happily with his gods. She was too scatterbrained to take care of plants, usually, but watching over his flowers was the least she could do for his memory. 

It was in the greenhouse that Dimitri found her. 

Mercedes heard his heavy bootfalls in the dirt, the sound of him brushing vegetation aside, well before she saw him. She looked up from her work to see him looming over her, thunder in his gaze. Mercedes was dressed for her task in a short tunic and trousers tucked into boots; Dimitri was out of his heavy black armor and cloak. This close, it did not make him any less imposing.

If he recognized the provenance of the flower whose buds Mercedes was carefully pruning—that it had been Dedue's sister's favorite, the one Dedue had cherished above the rest—Dimitri gave no sign of it. 

"Can I help you, Dimitri?" Mercedes said, setting aside her pruning shears and brushing the dirt from her gloves. 

"My wounds," he said flatly. "Fix them for me." 

Very well, she could do that. But his wounds did not explain why he was looking down at her as though he wanted to crack her bones for the marrow. His face was going to get stuck like that, she might have said once, but the time for teasing Dimitri was years past. 

His hand was pressed to his side. Mercedes reached out to touch him, and when he didn't break her wrist for her trouble, she pulled his shirt up to expose the sloppy, dirty bandages wrapped around his abdomen. Someone had patched him up, but he had not let them care for him. 

"I'm going to take these off," Mercedes said, running her finger along the bandages, looking for where they were anchored. "This may hurt." 

Dimitri grunted. Underneath the bandages was an axe wound, and it was hideous. Mercedes did not know how he'd managed the march back to the monastery with it anyone noticing. This could have become infected, someone should have _told_ her about it. When she figured out who the culprit was, she was going to be very disappointed in them. 

"Tell me something," Dimitri said, after a while.

"Yes?" Mercedes replied.

"Why does she come to you? For her needs." 

She was in the middle of coaxing blood vessels to re-form. It was detailed work, and she did not need this distraction. 

"I...." She swallowed hard, trying to focus on his blood. "I don't know. I wish I did."

Dimitri watched her as she worked for a long while. The fixity of his gaze was uncomfortable. When she was finished, the new skin was pink and raw, and it would never really match the skin around it, but it was _flesh_ , and not an unsightly scar. Mercedes allowed herself a moment of pride. She was clumsy with everything but this. Anyone who looked at it would know it for the work of a master Gremory.

"Please don't wait so long next time," Mercedes said. "Magic can't help you if fever or wound-rot sets in."

Without acknowledging her, he stood up to leave. Mercedes grabbed his arm. He needed to know she was serious. Before she realized what was happening, he had her shoved back against the back wall of the greenhouse, the glass cool against her back. They were well away from any prying eyes.

"Don't do that," he snapped. He settled a hand on the glass next to her head, hemming her in with his forearm. The fury in his eyes was rekindled. He loomed over her and gripped her throat lightly.

But somewhere behind those eyes was the kind prince who'd tutored her ceaselessly in the sword until she could pass her basic exams. Somewhere in there was the boy who'd bent needles for weeks and weeks trying to sew a simple backstitch, until she'd diverted him by teaching him to darn socks instead, to take that which was worn and make it whole and strong again. He still cared for them all. He _had_ to. That belief was her armor.

"Now you have me trapped! What do you intend to do?" Mercedes said, putting on her most saintly and unthreatening smile. She met his remaining eye—had a healer looked at _that_?—and he looked baffled. If she hadn't seen him crush enemies' skulls in his bare hands as easily as one might crush a flower, it might have been adorable. With great care, her heart pounding, heedless of his hand on her neck, Mercedes reached up to take his face in her hands. He flinched away from her gentle touch.

"No, no," she went on, pulling him back toward her, "that won't do."

Dimitri's nostrils flared in annoyance, but he could not be allowed to think he could intimidate her. His story, as related to her in pieces, was quite sad, but everyone tip-toed around Dimitri's moods and tantrums as though he was a spoiled child. Someone had to put their foot down, and she did not actually need Sylvain hovering over her shoulder to make people do what she wished them to.

"Goodness," she said. "We're all alone in this greenhouse where no one can see us. Anything could happen! What a position to be in."

"Mock me at your peril." Dimitri's tone promised blood, and he did not release her throat, but his grip loosened. Mercedes saw a tracery of scars on his neck, blossoming from beneath his shirt. Something had burnt him terribly: a fireball, a building collapsing in flame? Then, to her surprise, he leaned down and pressed his cheek against her hair.

She had come here directly after a long training session. She was not fragrant, but Dimitri inhaled deeply, and he seemed to relax. 

"This is the first time we've been alone together since you returned," Mercedes said. Oh, she wished he would let go of her neck. She was sure he could feel her pulse pounding like a rabbit's. "We were such good friends; I missed you so much—"

Dimitri's hand flexed: a warning, taken. She tried to ignore the thrill that ran through her at his nearness, how large he was—how she saw him nearly every other week eviscerate enemies on the battlefield, and how those hands were on her now. How his cheek was still pressed to her forehead. Byleth was stocky, her body thick with muscle from a lifetime of training, Sylvain was spare and lean, born to the saddle. Dimitri was somewhere in-between: long, powerful, hollowed out from years of hunger and death. And he was handsome, too. He had always been handsome. Mercedes wasn't unmoved. 

Everyone was going about the business of bringing him back to himself the wrong way. He did not need lectures or entreaties, he needed firmness and a kind touch. She could not cross enemy lines and save her brother from being the monster House Bartels had made him, but she could certainly help Dimitri, whether he wanted it or not. 

Mercedes gave up on talking and put her arms around his waist, pulling his body flush against hers. This was foolish of her, but she did not want to stop. One of her legs slipped between his, and she felt his thighs tense. His cock was half-hard through the thin fabric of her trousers. 

That should have changed things. He meant to have Byleth just as she and Sylvain had her, and Mercedes did not want to share. But he lowered his head so that his cheek rested against her temple, now, and she rubbed his upper back. His shoulders were taut, and she clucked her disapproval. Given a bit of time, she could work the tension out of them. 

Tentatively, Dimitri's lips pressed against her eyelids. It was gentle, almost sweet. His cock was fully hard against her now, just from this little bit of contact. Mercedes shifted her leg against his erection, just to see what he would do. 

"It's not you that I want," Dimitri said, his voice rough. 

Dimitri was here, he was handsome, and he was hard and straining for her after nothing more than a chaste embrace. If this was what was meant to be, there was no point in fighting it. Sylvain and the professor wouldn't mind, after all. 

"I don't want you either," Mercedes said, "but you can kiss me if you like." 

They stayed like that for a time. Dimitri's kiss, when it came, was slow and heavy. His hands were everywhere: he squeezed her breast with one hand, almost too hard for comfort, but, then, he truly never been one for delicate work. Mercedes pushed her tongue into his mouth past his initial, surprised resistance, and she drew it it over the roof of his mouth, enjoying the feel of him moaning, opening eagerly for her. He was accomplished, but he did not make her burn.

He spun Mercedes around so that she was pressed to the back wall of the greenhouse again, the glass cold against her cheek, steaming with her heavy breaths. With impatient hands, he shoved her trousers down around her knees. She heard a seam rip and a button pop, and distantly she hoped it was nothing important—but none of that mattered, because she felt his cock settle in the curve of her ass.

Mercedes stilled, her throat working with nerves. If Dimitri meant to enter her like this, to use her asshole without anything to ease his passage, she would have to tell him no. She had done this with Sylvain, but only with a quite lot of practice. She was not as enthusiastic as Byleth about the act. Dimitri was so strong, he could just overpower her, and she did not want to have to fight him off.

Instead, however, his arm came around her waist. He bit the soft flesh of her shoulder, and she whimpered at the pain. She wished he wouldn't do that, but before she could protest he thrust against her, just once. He pressed a hand against her ass, holding his cock between her cheeks, and the sensation... it was not unpleasant.

Yet Dimitri may as well have been grinding himself against a fencepost, for all the care he took with her. He muffled his needy noises in her hair and held her against him, groping at anything he could reach, but his movements were mechanical, measured, indifferent. After his kiss, it was a disappointment. She resigned herself to enduring it and reached down between her own legs to play idly at her clit. At least she was wet. The Goddess and her Saints had given Mercedes two people who very much cared whether she came, but she knew how to make herself feel good when someone else was not interested in doing so.

Then something changed. She felt it, when his thrusts grew erratic. He kicked her legs wide , and she felt an icy spike of fear—that he was going to put his cock inside her without giving her a brief pause for taking magical precautions—but instead, he slid it between her thighs. The whole length of him passed between her lips, the head of his cock bumped her fingers. He felt hot, and she tried to grasp at it, to stroke him as he withdrew. and If he angled himself a little higher, a little upward, he could brush over her clit.

"Mercedes," he said, his voice low in her ear. Like this, he almost sounded like Sylvain in the throes of passion, and that thought more than anything made her moan. Where Sylvain might have murmured sweet words to her and told her in exacting detail about how good she felt, Dimitri only breathed shuddering, broken breaths into the side of her neck. Knowing that she'd made someone this strong come undone with just her soft thighs—it was the same way she felt when she took Byleth apart into her component pieces. 

With a strangled growl, Dimitri released her waist and grabbed her by the hips to move her back and forth on his cock. Now he hit her clit with every stroke, and her hands went against the glass wall to brace herself. This powerlessness, the way he used her as he'd use his own hand, did not frighten her: it was thrilling. Mercedes squeezed her legs together as hard as she could to make it tight for him. It seemed to work. He bit her shoulder again, more softly this time, muffling his cry in it. 

In that moment, Mercedes understood precisely why Sylvain liked it when she slapped and pinched him. Just a little bit of pain, and her orgasm was building, building, she was so close, she just needed a bit more. She shoved back against Dimitri now of her own accord, trying to find the precise spot that would make her come undone. For one mad moment, she wished that he _would_ put it inside her and give her something to squeeze around. But her pleasure was incidental to whatever Dimitri hoped to accomplish here, and she knew it. When she did come it was weak and pitiful, hardly worth the trouble. In her daze, she hardly noticed it when Dimitri spent between her thighs, but for the fact that he came quite a lot, and a bit of it landed on the glass. 

He let her go. He took a step back. She turned around, leaning back against the wall, and they stared at one another, suspended in the moment. Mercedes could not think of a single thing to say to him, and when he left her behind without a word—not of thanks, nor of recrimination—she picked her shears up from the dirt and continued working on Dedue's plants. 

*

She told Sylvain about it the next day. The Cardinal's room echoed awfully and was terrible for whispering, but no one wanted to come here unless they absolutely had to; the chairs were awful. Sylvain sat on the table, listening patiently to her while she recounted how Dimitri had found her, up to the kiss.

"That's it? He kissed you? No pike-twirling? No death threats? No telling you how he was going to pull out your intestines and string them up for Saint Macuil Day?" 

"There was... a bit more than that."

"Yeah? How much more?" 

They always told one another all the details of their nights with Byleth. Sylvain was so good at making the things he did, and the things he wanted to do to her, sound erotic. Mercedes always felt awkward, for all that he assured her she sounded fine. And so she told Sylvain the rest of what had happened in the greenhouse, sparing no detail. Sylvain looked entertained at the start, but his facial expression grew gradually more solemn, and when she told him how much Dimitri had come on her he frowned. She could not have made it sound _that_ unarousing.

"I'm sorry, I'm not telling this very well," Mercedes said with a sigh.

"You sound as divine as always," Sylvain said. The flattery sounded rote.

The realization dawned on her as he held her hand and played at her fingers, refusing to meet her eyes. 

"Sylvain!" Mercedes said. "You're jealous." 

He laughed. It was completely mirthless. "That you got to him before I did, sure. He's intense, I bet he was a good ride. I'd—" 

"Sylvain," she repeated, tapping the bottom of his chin with the hand he wasn't holding. He looked up at her, and she did not know how he'd ever fooled anyone into thinking he was a callous liar when his feelings were written all over his face. He looked sad. She had made him cry, but she hated it when he looked sad. 

"Okay, a little." Sylvain kissed the palm of her hand. "You know I love you."

"Of course, of course," Mercedes said, patting his chest. She'd heard all of these pretty lines aimed at other people, people Sylvain did not particularly like. For a while, she had been the shoulder of choice for fellow Blue Lions to cry on after they thought Sylvain had broken their hearts. Perhaps Dimitri's recklessness had rubbed off on her, because she added, "And I'm sure you say that to all the women you're involved with right now."

"Mercie, there's nobody but you." Sylvain seemed taken aback, and it looked very convincing. The nickname was a bit much, but he sounded so ardent when he said it that Mercedes's heart skipped a beat.

"Yes, and the professor. It's all right," she hastened to say. "I won't be offended. You know you can tell me these things; I like you better when you're honest."

"The truth," he said. He turned his eyes skyward, as though he was praying for guidance.

Mercedes felt a stab of pity for him. After all this time, six years of acquaintance, battles fought together, blows taken for one another, wounds patched up, Sylvain still wasn't ready to be truthful with her. Well, whatever was in his heart, he would simply have to deal with it himself.

"Oh! I forgot, I have to go train," Mercedes said, once the silence had stretched a bit too long for her comfort. "Catherine wants to make me go through my sword drills again... I keep telling her I'm hopeless, but she's very hard to say no to when she's excited."

The sooner Sylvain got over this foolishness and realized he didn't have to pretend to love her in order to sleep with her, the better. She stood on her tiptoes to peck him on the cheek—she was late, after all—and he put his arms around her, his hold gentle. She could pull away, if she really wished it, but his hand was on the back of her head, stroking her hair. It felt so nice when he held her tenderly like this, with no expectation that it would go anywhere. He'd always been such a good friend to her. 

She pulled herself together enough to avoid embarrassing herself with Catherine. Felix was there, too, and he was very helpful. He even let her get hits in now and then, if only to critique her form and explain how he could have killed her in the meantime. 

"You can do better than Sylvain," he said, while they were taking a break from beating training dummies to within an inch of their lives. He took a drink from his waterskin, glaring into the middle distance. "What do you see in him?"

_I'm glad you asked, Felix! The professor and I are having sex, and Sylvain is also having sex with her, and we started having sex together because we got on so well when we were in bed with her that it made sense to keep doing it._

No, that simply would not do. Felix would implode, poor thing. Annette and Ingrid had asked similar questions, and Mercedes had talked about Sylvain's beautiful eyes and charming smile. Neither of them had really believed her, she could tell. Everyone knew what Sylvain was like. 

"He's fun," Mercedes said instead, echoing Byleth's words from before Aillel. "I hadn't had much fun in my life before him—and before all of you! Oh, can you fix my grip again? I keep forgetting it as soon as I let go."

Sword practice nearly made her forget about Dimitri's nonsense, but she told Byleth about the afternoon in the greenhouse, too. She waited a few days, debating whether she should do it. The dining hall was almost empty that evening, and no one sat near them. Byleth listened patiently to Mercedes's abbreviated recital of the details, and when Mercedes was done, Byleth asked, "Did you want to do it?" 

The question took Mercedes aback. "I...."

"If he forced himself on you," Byleth said, and left it at that. She didn't seem angry, but when she seemed least angry, one should be the most worried. Her nickname as a mercenary hadn't been the Ashen Milkmaid, after all. 

"No, no, he didn't," Mercedes insisted. Crest-given strength or no, if Byleth took it into her mind to fight Dimitri on her behalf, neither of them would walk away intact. "It was good." 

"That's not what I asked you." 

Mercedes considered. Before Byleth and Sylvain, sex had simply happened to her; it had been a long five years of being dangled in front of ambitious nobles. She had not minded it most of the time. Sometimes it had even been enjoyable.

"Dimitri was himself," she said, at last. "He can only be what he is, professor. I told him he could kiss me, and it kept going from there." 

Byleth's gaze was on her, evaluating. At last, she seemed to come to some conclusion, and she began piling Mercedes's dishes up neatly with her own.

"No. Dimitri can be better than this. Turn him down. Unless you want to have sex with him again, in which case, come to my room tonight. Or don't." 

Despite her coarse words, she put her hand on Mercedes's head, her fingers curling in Mercedes's hair. It always felt like a blessing when she did that. Then Byleth picked the dishes up and carried them off to be washed, leaving Mercedes in her wake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow your pal PD on twitter at @a_printersdevil!


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